Occupying yourself as a commercial programmer

[mystran]

So, I walked away. They hired two engineers (because my manager is partial to engineers) and I had to teach them basics like data structures and algorithms and, even though they have a month's warning, I was allocated 5 days to do the handover of the systems I had developed. Now I support those two via email on a daily basis - it's not their fault the business decisions suck, so I help them out with Q&A's.

I would advice you not to, as selfish as it may seem. Giving support for obviously doomed procedures simply keeps them alive longer, while draining your resources. At the minimum, make them pay you for the "consultation" and make sure that they pay enough to understand that it is wise to keep your productive staff in house.

[durand]

yeah. Everyone recommends that. It's just that I worked really hard for so long and I'd rather not let it collapse. They're getting the hang of it slowly.

But almost everyone I know has a story like this. Several programmers and IT people I used to know have actually left the industry to open up their own little ventures.

[ark]

Work as a programmer can be a good job to have, provided you meet a very specific set of criteria:

• You find a boss who understands that programming takes time and that good programming is worth doing. You must avoid at all costs managers (and other programmers who have any influence on your work whatsoever) who believe that writing well-designed code (i.e., with proper class organization, error-checking, etc., not necessarily 100% optimized code) is something "for later."
• The work you're doing is something that actually interests you.
• You find a place where working more than 40 hours a week is rare and even if you do you know you'll be compensated for the extra time.

Without at least these three things a programming job is a nightmare. There are a lot of negatives in the software industry. For one, it is very difficult to find a job fresh out of college because the market has been flooded with computer science majors ever since word got out that there was money to be had in the field. Even if you have someone putting in a good word for you, it doesn't always help.

I doubt you can expect to be paid according to your skill level these days, either, with so many programmers out there who can do the job, even if they don't do it particularly well.

You also have to be careful of people who are looking for computer scientists for jobs that may involve programming but are primarily something other than programming. There's no surer way to be bored to tears every day of the work week.

I recently was fortunate to be working for someone who was a programmer himself and a laid-back guy besides, and the programmng job was a pretty good one there. Otherwise, it's nothing like hobby programming.

Speaking of which, like df said, when you get a job as a programmer, all desire to do programming when you get home from work will quickly evaporate. Looking at code in my free time has become completely unappealing to me anymore.

[mystran]

Work can be a good job to have, provided you meet a very specific set of criteria:

- You find a boss who understands that work takes time, and that good work is worth doing. You must avoid at all cost managers who believe that doing good work is something "for later".
- The work you're doing is something that actually interests you.
- You find a place where working more than 40 hours a week is rare and even if you do you know you'll be compensated for the extra time.

Without at least these three things a job is a nightmare...

I think you get the point.

[me]

To get such a boss is only possible if the 'Boss' was an
x-programmer, only they'll b able to understand .

[ark]

Work can be a good job to have, provided you meet a very specific set of criteria:

- You find a boss who understands that work takes time, and that good work is worth doing. You must avoid at all cost managers who believe that doing good work is something "for later".
- The work you're doing is something that actually interests you.
- You find a place where working more than 40 hours a week is rare and even if you do you know you'll be compensated for the extra time.

Without at least these three things a job is a nightmare...

I think you get the point.

Point taken, but let's cut that 40 down to 30 or 25 or something like that

[Colonel Kernel]

To get such a boss is only possible if the 'Boss' was an
x-programmer, only they'll b able to understand .

That has its drawbacks as well (speaking from experience here). The problem with developers who get promoted to management is that many of them never learned how to manage properly. I mean that in the sense of knowing how to manage and motivate people, and also in the sense of knowing the ins and outs of software project management (estimation, scheduling, tracking, fighting off upper management, etc.).

So far, the best manager I've worked for is an ex-programmer, but not a recent one. He's been a project manager for at least 10 years, so his technical skills are obviously way out of date. It doesn't matter though, because he really understands the development process and the need to do things "right", but without the kind of over-engineering that can make a project late. He's good at coming up with a reasonable schedule and defending it to his boss, which really helps make my life easier (nothing worse than the #@$*@#$ CEO coming into your office to "motivate" you, only to make you want to punch his #@$@*# lights out ).